The purpose of the investigation of life events is to measure the relationship between the number and kind of life events, the amount of subjectively felt social support and social alienation to mood disorders in affectively disturbed patients versus controls. A new scale, the Family Attitudes Questionnaire, has been developed to measure patients' and relatives' perceptions of the morbid risk for depression or mania, of the burden these disorders create for the family, and the effect this may have on plans for marriage and child-bearing. In a study of 19 married patients/spouse couples, where marriages have been stable for at least two years, about half the spouses regret having married, but nearly none of the patients do. Less patients than spouses believe affective illness has a genetic component. Marriage and child-bearing do not appear to have been deterred by the presence of illness. The Weisman Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale was given to a pilot sample of out-patient manic depressive patients and their spouses to determine the similarity/difference in attitudes toward themselves and the world. No differences between patients or spouses were found, and they did not differ from published values in normals. The Life Events Scale, adapted from earlier research is being used in conjunction with the family study interview of patients, their family members, and controls.